Colonial Impact: Yurok and Southeastern Indians (1800-1907)

Colonial Relations Among the Yurok Communities and the Native nations of the Southeast.

Analysis:

What are the major colonial impacts in terms of:

1. Geopolitical (hegemonic, competitive and/or administrative) relations. What are the ways in which differing geopolitical relations affected social change among the Yurok and Southeastern tribes. [define relevant terms of political colonialism, provide historical overview w/ examples]

2. Markets such as fur trade and cotton market among the Southeastern Nations and fishing among the Yurok. What are the impacts for social change created by market incorporation and changing economic conditions. [define logic of market incorporations, provide historical overview w/ examples, conclusion about social change]

3. Western cultural features (i.e. Christianity, values for profit-making, examples of new American style government) that affected change and adaptation among the Yurok and Southeastern tribes. [define modes of cultural exchange, provide historical overview w/ examples, conclusion about social change]

4. Analysis. What is the combination of colonial impacts that forced significant change upon the Yurok and Southeastern tribes? [combine all 3 arguments, combined conclusion about social change]

5. Critique theories of colonial impact. What do the theories tell us and what do they fail to take into account. What is a more complete argument... suggestions for a more complete argument? [critique logic of the colonialism argument, present alternative of more complete possible argument]

Books:
Standing Ground: Yurok Indian spirituality, 1850-1990 by Thomas Buckley
Social Order and Political Change: Constitutional Governments Among the Cherokee, The Choctaw, The Chickasaw, and The Creek by Duane Champagne

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See responses below:

1. What are the major colonial impacts in terms of geopolitical (hegemonic, competitive and/or administrative) relations - What are the ways in which differing geopolitical relations affected social change among the Yurok and Southeastern tribes? [Define relevant terms of political colonialism, provide historical overview w/ examples]
Native Americans arrived on the North American continent at some time between the 9th millennium BC and 48,000 BC, and dominated the area until the influx of European settlers in the early 17th century (Pre-Colonial America For details, see the main Pre-Colonial America article). (1)
Political Colonialism: Colonial America (1497-1776) Colonial America was defined by ongoing battles with Native Americans, a severe labor shortage which gave birth to forms of unfree labor such as slavery and indentured servitude, and a British policy of benign neglect which permitted the development of an American spirit and culture which was distinct from that of its European founders (For details, see the main Colonial America article). (1)
Impact of Colonization in the history of the United States (1776-1789): During this period the United States won its independence from the Kingdom of Great Britain during the American Revolutionary War and established itself as the United States of America with 13 States
(For details, see the main History of the United States (1776-1789) article). (1)
Geopolitical Early relations
From the outset European colonists had, at best, lived in an uneasy truce with the Native Americans. While the groups sometimes cooperated (i.e., hegemonic), the Natives were inexorably displaced from the most favorable land, and frequently resisted this process with violence (i.e., competitive)

Map of Native American language families roughly as found at first contact with Europeans.
Competivie Geopolitical Relations: Although in recent years it has become popular to assert that Native Americans learned scalping from Europeans, historical evidence suggests that scalping by Native Americans had been practiced long before contact with Europeans.[3] The first reported case of white men scalping Native Americans took place in New Hampshire colony on February 20, 1725. In reality, any kind of recognizable "body part" to prove a kill would have sufficed. (6)
However, Four Nations of the Iroquois Confederacy sided with the British and the Tories in the American Revolutionary War. The colonists were especially outraged by the Wyoming Valley Massacre and the Cherry Valley Massacre, which occurred in 1778. In 1779 Congress sent Major General John Sullivan on what has become known as the Sullivan Expedition to neutralize the Iroquois threat to the American side. The two allied nations were rewarded, at least temporarily, by keeping title to their lands after the Revolution. The title was later purchased very cheaply by Massachusetts and sold off in the Phelps and Gorham Purchase and the Holland Purchase, after which by treaty these lands became part of New York State. The tribes were either moved to reservations or sent westward (i.e., Pacific region - Yurkons). For example, part of the Cayuga Nation was granted a reservation in British Canada. (6)
Indian Wars and forced relocations
In the 19th century, the Westward expansion of the United States incrementally expelled large numbers of Native Americans (i.e., Yurkons and souteastern Indians alike) from vast areas of their territory, either by forcing them into marginal lands farther and farther west, or by outright massacres. Under President Andrew Jackson, Congress passed the Indian Removal Act of 1830, which forced the Five Civilized Tribes from the east onto western reservations, primarily to take their land for settlement. The forced migration was marked by great hardship and many deaths. Its route is known as the Trail of Tears. (6)
Conflicts generally known at the time as "Indian Wars" broke out between U.S. forces and many different tribes. Authorities entered numerous treaties during this period, but later abrogated many for various reasons. Well-known military engagements include the atypical Native American victory at the Battle of Little Bighorn in 1876, and the massacre of Native Americans at Wounded Knee in 1890. On January 31, 1876 the United States government ordered all remaining Native Americans to move into reservations or reserves. This, together with the near-extinction of the American Bison which many tribes had lived on, set about the downturn of Prairie Culture that had developed around the use of the horse for hunting, travel and trading. (6)

Students at the Bismark Indian School in the early 20th century
American policy toward Native Americans has been an evolving process. In the late nineteenth century reformers in efforts to civilize Indians adapted the practice of educating native children in Indian Boarding Schools. These schools, which were primarily run by Christians [4], proved traumatic to Indian children, who were forbidden to speak their native languages, taught Christianity instead of their native religions and in numerous other ways forced to abandon their Indian identity[5] and adopt European-American culture. There are also many documented cases of sexual, physical and mental abuses occurring at these schools [6] [7]. (6)
Many other attempts have been made to deprive the American Indians of their culture, language, or religious beliefs, some continuing up to the present day. [8]. (6)
In sum, with the coming of Europeans to North America, Native Americans experienced a series of dislocations from which they are still struggling to recover. Foreign invaders overran their territories and claimed sovereignty over their communities, diseases ravaged their populations, and their environments were drastically altered. In many cases, Native Americans were forcibly removed from their aboriginal homelands and livelihoods, with the result that indigenous cultures underwent rapid change. In the midst of these crises, as Native Americans turned to their own religious traditions to understand and ease their plight, missionaries attempted to convert them from their traditional religions to Christianity. (7)
2. Markets such as fur trade and cotton market among the Southeastern Nations and fishing among the Yurok. What are the impacts for social change created by market incorporation and changing economic conditions? [Define logic of market incorporations; provide historical overview w/ examples, conclusion about social change]

Impacts of markets on fur trading, fishing and agriculture across different periods-
a. Colonial America (1497-1776)
Colonial America was defined by ongoing battles with Native Americans, a severe labor shortage which gave birth to forms of unfree labor such as slavery and indentured servitude, and a British policy of benign neglect which permitted the development of an American spirit and culture which was distinct from that of its European founders (For details, see the main Colonial America article). Once in slavery and indentured servitude, and with market incorporation, the Natives gradually lost their livelihood of fur tradingand agricultural and were confined on small reservations by the dominant society. Let's look closer at each period and the events that lead to this decline of the Yurkon and southeasterna Natives markets.
b. History of the United States (1776-1789)
During this period the United States won its independence from the Kingdom of Great Britain during the American Revolutionary War and established itself as the United States of America with 13 States (For details, see the main History of the United States (1776-1789) article).
Truly, market incorporation was designed for economic gain for the dominant society. For example, led by Southern and Western Jeffersonians, Congress declared war on Britain in 1812 under the pretext of opposing British interference with American shipping as well as British aid to Native Americans in Canada and west of the Mississippi (i.e., Yuroks), Westerners and Southerners (i.e., southeastern Indians) were the most ardent supporters of the war, given their concerns about expanding settlement in Native American lands beyond the Mississippi and access to world markets for their agricultural exports. The New England Federalists opposed the war, and their reputation consequently suffered in its aftermath. This access to the world markets had an economic gain for the dominant group and had the potential to help the natives had the events favored this expansion for the southeastern Indians (1)
The War of 1812 essentially resulted in the maintenance of the 'status quo ante' ...

Solution Summary

Referring to colonial relations among the Yurok Communities and the Native nations of the Southeast, this solution examines the major colonial impact on these communities and nations in terms of five dimensions e.g. geopolitical, market incorporation, cultural and the colonialism argument, etc.